The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 13, 2023 Share Posted April 13, 2023 (edited) Re Vaemond: If there wasn't a trial, its extrajudicial murder by default but there's no point in continuing this particular discussion. Re Mysaria: You make some very good points. I think its the accent and dialogue that get me so worked up. That and I probably judge her much more harshly than you do. Re Alicent: That's why I added "for lack of a better word." What I was trying to get at is that I see book!Alicent as being somewhat of a mishmash of show!Margaery and early book!Catelyn, whereas show!Alicent reminds me more of late book!Catelyn and show!Cersei. Re adapting older Alicent/younger Rhaenyra: Is it though? In this hypothetical Alicent would have tried her best to get along with Rhaenyra but more importantly 1) Rhaenyra is her own person and, by all implications, said personage is fundamentally incompatible with Alicent's, and 2) Rhaenyra is 32 years old when the Dance starts, which is plenty of time for them to grow apart or even hostile once Rhaenyra is an adult. And the idea of a stepparent trying their best but both they and the stepchild still wind up disliking or even hating each other is plausible because its sadly realistic. Just to be clear, this is simply one road they could have taken that, by definition, would hew closer to the scant source material (thanks for not expanding Heirs of the Dragon or the Dance, GRRM!) and make for an interesting alternative to what we actually got is all I'm saying. Re Helaena: Umm...I think I was agreeing with you? Showing the effects of grief and trauma is admirable on GRRM's part but when it comes at the cost of reducing a (popular*) dragon-riding queen in the middle of a civil war to a literal non-entity I don't think it was the right decision to make. *GRRM doesn't even bother explaining why Alicent and Helaena were so beloved. Did they go out among the people like Margaery does in AFFC? Were they known for their charity and piety like Good Queen Alysanne? Were they just nice people in general if you weren't Rhaenyra or one of her supporters? Edited April 13, 2023 by The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 13, 2023 Share Posted April 13, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Re Vaemond: If there wasn't a trial, its extrajudicial murder by default but there's no point in continuing this particular discussion. I don't think it would be. You do know this world. Imagine some cousin of Ned's showed up at Winterfell and claimed Robb Stark wasn't Ned's son but Jory Cassel's. Regardless of the issue, do you think in the context of this world and their values the insulted lordly party would not have every right to strike done the insulting party here? Do you think 'law' and 'due process' and other moderistic nonsense would force him to actually investigate the sex life of his lady wife if he didn't want to or actually knew that he wasn't the father of his son? I don't think so. The issue of the parentage of Rhaenyra's sons had been dealt with by the king in 120 AC. It was settled. So anyone reiterating it in Rhaenyra's presence was definitely insulting her. And for that she can demand satisfaction. Duels are fought over less, and if anybody were to call a princess a slut or whore or a king a cuckold then I think they are not, in fact, obliged by the values and customs that govern their society to pause a moment and (pretend to) investigate the accusation that was made. Westeros is not Arthur's Round Table ideal. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Re Mysaria: You make some very good points. I think its the accent and dialogue that get me so worked up. That and I probably judge her much more harshly than you do. She certainly is a character where the biases of both the sources and the narrator should be taken into account. She is foreign scum that rose well beyond her station. And in context you have to ask her why the hell she stayed behind in KL when Rhaenyra left? One way to explain this could be that she cared about the (or her) people there. She cannot have been as stupid as to think that nobody would harm her. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Re Alicent: That's why I added "for lack of a better word." What I was trying to get at is that I see book!Alicent as being somewhat of a mishmash of show!Margaery and early book!Catelyn, whereas show!Alicent reminds me more of late book!Catelyn and show!Cersei. Not sure I'd go there with book Alicent. We really don't know her or her personality. Even my interpretation of her attitude towards Viserys - that the fact that she never mentioned his name in her last days when talking constantly about the Old King - doesn't have to mean she never loved him or never cared or him. It kind of implies that, but it could just as well be the Dance and the factionalism had effectively destroyed all good memories she ever had of her married life. But she certainly does realize that her ambitions ruined her life and the lives of her children, so ambitions book Alicent definitely had. Show Alicent to a much lesser degree. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Re adapting older Alicent/younger Rhaenyra: Is it though? In this hypothetical Alicent would have tried her best to get along with Rhaenyra but more importantly 1) Rhaenyra is her own person and, by all implications, said personage is fundamentally incompatible with Alicent's. In what sense? Strictly speaking, Rhaenyra has no beef with step-mommy. She is the Heir Apparent, and her half-brothers are not. She could reasonably enough eventually have gotten into a rivalry with Aegon and his brothers as they certainly had claims they could push against hers ... but Alicent could have had a neutral position in all this. She didn't have to be the one pushing her children against Rhaenyra. Now, George could have depicted Rhaenyra as mobbing, ridiculing, attacking Alicent - just think about the non-Targaryen blood angle. Rhaenyra could have mocked her for her relatively low birth, the blatant ambition of her and her father to rise above their station, etc. She could have been, say, the Commoner Queen to the Blacks ... and Otto the Hand without a Hearth or something along those lines. But they weren't. And it is also kind of interesting that many a Green is actually somebody who was once spurned by Rhaenyra - not just Criston, but also the Lannister twins. We don't see the reverse - people who were spurned or disappointed by Alicent joining the party of the princess. In that sense the Blacks strike one more as the coterie of fanboys and admirers and favor-seekers the Heir Apparent would always attract (Rhaegar had his companions, too) whereas the agenda of the queen's party seems to be somewhat more sinister from the start. We get Alicent attack Rhaenyra - the remark about Criston being a danger to her, her pushing for a change of the succession, her investigating the parentage of Rhaenyra's children ... but no similar remarks from Rhaenyra or her camp. So if you read the actual book we don't have Rhaenyra starting any hostilities there. Even the gowns at the tourney of 111 AC isn't really hostile on Rhaenyra's part - she shows of her house, the royal dynasty, and who and what she is at her father's court. Basically, what we have is an adult kind of mobbing and harassing a child/adolescent. And insofar as the jealousy between the two women is concerned - as I said when the show came out: The hierarchy of the court would be crystal clear. The queen would outrank the princess. And Rhaenyra was fine with her father remarrying and stuff and they were friends in the beginning. So her getting a new mother she had to defer to in public was no issue. The issue was that Alicent had sons and she and her father wanted to put them before Rhaenyra. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: 2) Rhaenyra is 32 years old when the Dance starts, which is plenty of time for them to grow apart or even hostile once Rhaenyra is an adult. That is so, but that's not what's depicted, either. The rift forms when Rhaenyra is yet very young, not when she is a mother and Princess of Dragonstone in her own right. It only deepens then. And I'm not saying that Rhaenyra is blameless in all that. I just said Alicent definitely shares the bulk of the blame simply because she is the elder in the book - and in the role of a step-parent - whereas Rhaenyra is a child/adolescent when this all starts. So even if the sources would have painted Rhaenyra as an Aerea-like brat (which they don't), playing cruel jokes on Otto and Alicent and her brothers, then it would have still Alicent's responsibility to not lose her cool over all that and be the adult that she was. I mean, George writes more about Rhaenyra's character in the Amok description than in all of FaB. If we had seen that she was haughty and proud and obsessive and never forgot a slight, etc. then things could have been quite different. Hell, he could have written many ugly scenes about Alicent's young sons playing pranks on their elder half-sister Rhaenyra never forgot (her wedding would have been great opportunity to do this). We could have reports about her having severe beef with highborn heirs like the Lannister twins over relative trivial issues. We could have a character who has a tendency to be vain, with a tendency to make as many enemies as she makes friends. We could have a character who was formally betrothed to her brother Aegon only to end this betrothal in a cruel manner (say, by actually beating up Aegon, attacking him in his bedchamber, etc.). But we don't get any of that. Rhaenyra doesn't even seem to have ill feelings towards Criston Cole. Basically we have to effectively forget what's in that description because we don't see that in FaB at all. And I actually think that the image of Rhaenyra this description created kind of made her unsympathetic to some long before any of the historical material came out. But the woman we actually get in the book is described quite different. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: And the idea of a stepparent trying their best but both they and the stepchild still wind up disliking or even hating each other is plausible because its sadly realistic. Just to be clear, this is simply one road they could have taken that, by definition, would hew closer to the scant source material (thanks for not expanding Heirs of the Dragon or the Dance, GRRM!) and make for an interesting alternative to what we actually got is all I'm saying. If both or the stepmother had tried their best they might have ended up being distant, cool, formal, or estranged ... but not mortal enemies and rivals for the throne. That takes something else. However, a more book-like scenario would have Alicent inevitably as a complete asshole and villain because as the sources show - she is the one picking on Rhaenyra and not the other way around ... and if they are ten and twenty years old, respectively, when it slowly begins then, well, all sympathies would lie with the little girl and not the evil stepmother who would have to be jealous of the station and position of her stepdaughter (or the love Viserys showed her). It is not that things start to go south because Rhaenyra has alleged bastards and stuff. That only happens at a point when the factions have already formed and there is a clear and distinct rivalry between the faction of the princess and the faction of the queen. In that sense - making Rhaenyra and Alicent besties and effectively of the same age worked greatly to Alicent's advantage as a character who could be likable to the audience. If they had her as a woman ten years older than Rhaenyra it would have sucked in any scenario. Even if they had aged up Rhaenyra to 14-15 while making Alicent 24-25 at the beginning of the show it would have made her an adult woman picking on a teenager. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Re Helaena: Umm...I think I was agreeing with you? Showing the effects of grief and trauma is admirable on GRRM's part but when it comes at the cost of reducing a (popular*) dragon-riding queen in the middle of a civil war to a literal non-entity I don't think it was the right decision to make. Don't think I was contradicting you there. We are pretty much in agreement there. He also could have made both easily enough. Helaena could have flown into war both before and/or after suffering her trauma (from which she could have then recovered). Criston Cole even urges Aemond to find a way to free Helaena so she could join him and Daeron on Dreamfyre. The problem is that effectively spends her entire story as a prop confined to her quarters. 8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: *GRRM doesn't even bother explaining why Alicent and Helaena were so beloved. Did they go out among the people like Margaery does in AFFC? Were they known for their charity and piety like Good Queen Alysanne? Were they just nice people in general if you weren't Rhaenyra or one of her supporters? Don't think this has to be explained. We also hear Rhaenyra was beloved and later we hear that Daenaera is beloved because of her beauty, and even Aegon III simply because of the fact that many people saw him and Jaehaera during the wedding-coronation. He could have given an explanation there, to be sure, but Margaery and Renly simply seem to be popular and beloved because they do look good in public ... whereas Cersei is not beloved because she is a Lannister and people still remember the Sack. Cersei is very beautiful, too, and would have done some standard charity stuff - or it would have been done in her name. The common people wouldn't have seen her true face and character, so that cannot really be the reason why she isn't popular. And with Rhaenyra it is pretty clear that the mad fear of the dragons combined with the spreading of evil rumors and lies in combination with the unpopular taxes turned a considerable portion of the people against her. Edited April 14, 2023 by Lord Varys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 14, 2023 Share Posted April 14, 2023 @Lord Varys I think the Rhaenyra in Amok's portrait would have made for a far more interesting character. Also, I feel the issue with Helaena is compounded by the fact the Greens are, from the beginning, hopelessly outmatched dragon-wise. (That would be less of an issue if GRRM had properly expanded the family tree by, say, having Aegon (son of Baelon) live, Saera's sons be involved, Aemma Arryn having a twin sister or twin brother, etc.) Oh, and you have a way with nicknames. The Hand Without a Hearth is brilliant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 14, 2023 Share Posted April 14, 2023 16 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys I think the Rhaenyra in Amok's portrait would have made for a far more interesting character. I'm not so sure. She sounds like a rather unpleasant person there. And mostly it were traits better fitting a woman who lived into middle or even old(er) age. Rhaenyra dies at 33, so there was not much time for her to become mean and embittered woman. But, of course, FaB really fails at showing how Rhaenyra (or Daemon) antagonizes or pushes away men and houses which may have been allies. The Lannister thing is so thin you basically have to make it up yourself. The biggest point why Amok Rhaenyra literally has nothing to do with FaB Rhaenyra is the simple fact that she and Daemon are completely unprepared for the coup. A woman who never forgets a slight and who is slightly paranoid and compulsive would have thought 24/7 about whether the bitch queen and her asshead father would honor her father's decree or try to push her aside. And she would prepare for that. But these two morons don't actually expect are war. And are completely unprepared for it. Have no clear allies among the great houses. I still have to laugh to think about how book Rhaenyra/Daemon spend their nine years on their rock ... and what they expected to happen when/if Viserys were to die. And, sure enough, I guess nobody from the royal family - Black or Green - bothered attending the funeral of Lord Boremund Baratheon, half-brother to the Old King and the Good Queen, to, you know, establish (strong) ties with his son and successor. 16 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Also, I feel the issue with Helaena is compounded by the fact the Greens are, from the beginning, hopelessly outmatched dragon-wise. (That would be less of an issue if GRRM had properly expanded the family tree by, say, having Aegon (son of Baelon) live, Saera's sons be involved, Aemma Arryn having a twin sister or twin brother, etc.) Yeah, that makes this more annoying. The prominence of Vhagar in the Green camp is really kind of annoying. And, of course, if Viserys I had had a dragon of his own when he died - or there had simply been more dragons in the Dragonpit - then the Greens could have had a riderless dragon of their own for which they could have found a rider. In addition to legitimate cadet branches, there was also the possibility of Targaryen bastards or even 'Targaryen bastard houses' in the capital. Jaehaerys' children could have left some illegitimate offspring a kind and generous king like Viserys would have included into the dynasty to a point. Say, by giving them hereditary offices at court or pretty big estates in the Crownlands (which could have been destroyed in the Dance). But I find the nonsensical dragon deployment of the Blacks actually worse than the way Greens do it. Daeron and Tessarion are very effective and Aegon and Aemond at least try to utilize their dragons. 16 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Oh, and you have a way with nicknames. The Hand Without a Hearth is brilliant. Yes, that fits quite well. Somebody should hire me to come up with those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 14, 2023 Share Posted April 14, 2023 (edited) @Lord Varys I'll take mean, bitter Rhaenyra over boring, weak-willed Rhaenyra any day of the week. The solution I came up with for my comprehensive (and unfinished) rewrite of the Dance was having Rhaenyra and Daemon slowly gather evermore sellswords and sellsails between 120-129 AC under the pretext of launching a new campaign against the Triarchy, which would fool no one but Viserys I. Someone really should hire you to come up with nicknames though I must confess I think the Commons' Queen works slightly better than the Commoner Queen. Edited April 14, 2023 by The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Aelwen and The Bard of Banefort 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 15, 2023 Share Posted April 15, 2023 19 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys I'll take mean, bitter Rhaenyra over boring, weak-willed Rhaenyra any day of the week. Definitely, I'd have liked her more active, but not necessarily mean and unhinged. 19 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: The solution I came up with for my comprehensive (and unfinished) rewrite of the Dance was having Rhaenyra and Daemon slowly gather evermore sellswords and sellsails between 120-129 AC under the pretext of launching a new campaign against the Triarchy, which would fool no one but Viserys I. Sellswords could, perhaps, make sense to a point. But not sellsails. They do have an enormous fleet with the Velaryons fleet. They don't need more. The joke is on George that effectively all great houses have to be approached after the death of Viserys I - when we would assume that both court factions would have made it their core policy to get the great lords into their camp. The biggest flaw is the irrelevance of the Tyrells. They are the most powerful house, so both faction would want them in their camp more than anyone else ... yet we have no clue in which the late Lord Tyrell was leaning nor where the original allegiances of his wife would have been. It is also ultimately dumb why the hell no dragonrider ever visits Highgarden. If the Tyrells had called their banner the entire war in the Reach would have changed. Aemond flies to Storm's End ... why doesn't he continue to Highgarden from there? Couldn't have hurt. 19 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Someone really should hire you to come up with nicknames though I must confess I think the Commons' Queen works slightly better than the Commoner Queen. Was thinking about Alicent's insult that Rhaenyra's sons looked common with all that. So I wanted that word there. My impression is that you would say 'Commoner Queen' if you would want to say the queen is no noblewoman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 15, 2023 Share Posted April 15, 2023 @Lord Varys Yeah, "active" is the key word here. The fact Aemond, Daeron, Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, Maelor, and Joffrey weren't already betrothed is also mind-boggling. (In RL it wasn't uncommon for princes and princesses to be promised while still very young. In some cases they even got married, such as Louis XI with his first wife and Richard II with his second wife.) Doesn't help that Viserys I's actual reign is glossed over, including what the great houses and their vassals made of the feud between the two factions. The Commoner Queen makes sense in that regard but it doesn't flow as well and Alicent isn't a commoner. Then again, that probably just makes the insult more meaningful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 15, 2023 Share Posted April 15, 2023 14 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys Yeah, "active" is the key word here. Yes. The core reason why Rhaenyra and the Dance were an interesting era ... was that a woman was making a big play there. And now it turns out she didn't, really. A bunch of men made it in her name, mostly. It is a letdown in that regard. Sure enough, she does want to be queen. That desire is there. But not much else. Although we don't even know if she is ambitious for herself or views herself as the born ruler or anything along those lines. When she gets to make an argument about her claim it is the wish of her late father she brings up, nothing else, so her ambition could be more or less be that of a dutiful daughter. Also, of course, she has a duty to her sons once they are born, etc. 14 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: The fact Aemond, Daeron, Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, Maelor, and Joffrey weren't already betrothed is also mind-boggling. (In RL it wasn't uncommon for princes and princesses to be promised while still very young. In some cases they even got married, such as Louis XI with his first wife and Richard II with his second wife.) While some of that is true, I think it is kind of obvious who Jaehaerys and Jaehaera would have married - each other, of course. What other option is there for Targaryen twins? And Maelor is too young for a betrothal, although his hand could have been a bargaining chip the Greens could have used. Aemond not being betrothed is indeed very odd. Things could have been interesting there if he was betrothed to some Black heiress or the daughter of a prominent Black lord and the tensions between the factions led to the wedding being postponed repeatedly. A good idea could have been a daughter of Vaemond Velaryon, I think. Viserys could have arranged such a match after the Vhagar incident with the later crisis putting it effectively on hold. Daeron should - and may have been - betrothed to a daughter of Lord Ormund Hightower. Joffrey is young enough to be not yet betrothed ... but it is odd that his mother wouldn't have used his hand to get a prominent house on board. In fact, realistically one would assume that both Greens and Blacks would have wanted to get a Tyrell bride for some of their younger sons. But, of course, the more glaring oversight are the Four Storms. Why isn't any of them already betrothed or even married to a prince? Surely they would be the obvious matches for younger princes who don't get sisters to marry. 14 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Doesn't help that Viserys I's actual reign is glossed over, including what the great houses and their vassals made of the feud between the two factions. That they still have to get some neutral or reluctant guys to commit themselves after Viserys' death makes sense. But the Blacks have effectively no great house on their side at that point. And that makes no sense. 14 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: The Commoner Queen makes sense in that regard but it doesn't flow as well and Alicent isn't a commoner. Then again, that probably just makes the insult more meaningful. George could have fleshed out Alicent's nameless mother, giving her a colorful background akin to that of the Spicers, say. Otto is a younger son, but we don't know if he is a second son or a fourth or sixth. In the latter case he could have married for love or made a match that wasn't very prestigious. But, of course, this is just one idea how Rhaenyra's attitude towards her stepmother could have led to the later factionalism. As I said - the way it is we do have to lay the bulk of the blame at Alicent's feet. That Rhaenyra eventually fights back and defends her right you cannot really hold against her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 17, 2023 Share Posted April 17, 2023 (edited) @Lord Varys Yeah. From the beginning the Greens can reasonably expect the support of at least Oldtown and Casterly Rock but the fact the Blacks in particular made no betrothals or fostering overtures, embarked on no royal progresses, hosted no tourneys, etc. boggles the mind. The fact that Rhaenyra turned out to be such a pale shadow of her RL counterpart (the Empress Maud) is indeed disappointing. The idea of "willful" Rhaenyra trying to take the throne because she thinks she's more suited to it that you espoused prior to TPATQ coming out was much better conceptually speaking. I disagree about Maelor being too young. In RL we've had royal infants be promised to someone before. There's so much GRRM didn't bother fleshing out in general when it came to the Dance. Alicent's mother, Aemma Arryn, Viserys I's relationship with Daemon, Rhaenyra's relationship with her half-siblings, etc. Honestly though, one of my biggest gripes with the Dance is that it doesn't feel like a destructive conflict that ended a golden age because of how few adult Targaryens there are. There really ought to have been more cadet branches, male and female. Aemma having a twin, Aegon (son of Baelon) being a wildcard counterweight, etc. Furthermore, it isn't like GRRM had to make every other female character die childless (Viserra, Gael, Rhaena, Aerea, Rhaella, etc.). The biggest example of GRRM oversimplifying things is the fact widowed princes and kings don't remarry and the fact most princes are faithful to their wives. Seriously, the only ones we know slept around are Maegor I, Aegon II, Aegon IV, Daeron the Drunkard, Aerion, and Aerys II, with Aegon IV being the only one to have named mistresses who actually did wield some level of power and influence. (Aegon the Uncrowned was hinted to be going down that route what with "not being indifferent to [women's] charms.") In real life, Baelon would NEVER have been allowed to mourn the rest of his life even if he wanted to, not when his older brother only has a daughter and he himself two young sons. If anything, Baelon and Aemon having mistresses could have accomplished several things at once: 1) It makes the whole Dragonseeds affair more plausible than all of these smallfolk having the same degree of royal blood as Corlys, which is to say, very little since in canon we're talking about pre-Conquest generations. 2) It could also be useful with regards to fleshing out Ulf and Hugh. 3) Any bastards, male or female, could be used to establish marital alliances on both sides. 4) It would help make sense of the whole "Viserra wants the throne" story since it would be clear that other women COULD in fact worm their way into the princes' affections. 5) Having Baelon and/or Aemon be the perfect prince/brother except in the matter of their sex lives would not only subvert the overt Robb-Jon parallels GRRM included (right down to the "Jon was lean and graceful where Robb was fast and strong") but also provide an interesting source of conflict with their parents since I doubt J & A, being the traditional, conservative couple that they are, would approve of their sons sleeping around yet its the only fault they can find in their sons so they pick at it constantly (sort of like George III with regards to his sons incidentally). Another idea would have been to give Viserys (son of Aenys) a posthumous son and/or have Vaella (daughter of Aenys) live to marry and have kids of her own. Because as is there are more Targaryens and Targaryen cadet branches during Daeron II's time than there are during Viserys I's time, right down to their being a Prince of Dragonstone AND a Prince of Summerhall. (The fact, Viserys I didn't try to make his sons lords in their own right a la Robert with Stannis and Renly or marry them to heiresses a la Rhea Royce baffles me.) Edited April 17, 2023 by The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Morte 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 18, 2023 Share Posted April 18, 2023 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys Yeah. From the beginning the Greens can reasonably expect the support of at least Oldtown and Casterly Rock but the fact the Blacks in particular made no betrothals or fostering overtures, embarked on no royal progresses, hosted no tourneys, etc. boggles the mind. They could expect the support of Oldtown to a reasonable degree - that they also have Casterly Rock is something that is only made evident in the Green Council scene. And we have no idea why that is. As I said, the reader really has to insert the idea into the text that Jason and Tyland may have gotten pissed at Rhaenyra because she spurned them ... that is not there, and they could very well have been man enough to not take that as an insult or slight. The show thankfully had Daemon give us an explanation why Tyland would likely stick with the Greens. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: The fact that Rhaenyra turned out to be such a pale shadow of her RL counterpart (the Empress Maud) is indeed disappointing. The idea of "willful" Rhaenyra trying to take the throne because she thinks she's more suited to it that you espoused prior to TPATQ coming out was much better conceptually speaking. That struck me as the only possible take on things back when Aegon II was apparently the chosen heir of his father and Rhaenyra his full sister and only a year older. Now, the changed scenario is not bad, either, but what's lacking there in the story is a proper conflict between Rhaenyra and Aegon. Rhaenyra being the chosen heir strengthen her position ... but it could have been even more interesting if Aegon very much wanted to be king himself and/or thought he would be a much better king while a lot of people realized that he was very much unsuited for the job for various reasons. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: I disagree about Maelor being too young. In RL we've had royal infants be promised to someone before. While that is true, that kind of thing is very rare in Westeros ... and they would just not betroth a Targaryen prince at this early age if there was still a chance his parents' fertile marriage would produce a younger sister for him to marry. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Honestly though, one of my biggest gripes with the Dance is that it doesn't feel like a destructive conflict that ended a golden age because of how few adult Targaryens there are. There really ought to have been more cadet branches, male and female. Aemma having a twin, Aegon (son of Baelon) being a wildcard counterweight, etc. Furthermore, it isn't like GRRM had to make every other female character die childless (Viserra, Gael, Rhaena, Aerea, Rhaella, etc.). The biggest example of GRRM oversimplifying things is the fact widowed princes and kings don't remarry and the fact most princes are faithful to their wives. Seriously, the only ones we know slept around are Maegor I, Aegon II, Aegon IV, Daeron the Drunkard, Aerion, and Aerys II, with Aegon IV being the only one to have named mistresses who actually did wield some level of power and influence. (Aegon the Uncrowned was hinted to be going down that route what with "not being indifferent to [women's] charms.") Yes, yes, that is kind of the weird thing. It wasn't really so much a golden age for House Targaryen as such, more another bottleneck where they were down to two branches which then started to spread out when the war was already in the air. This could have been much grander, more intense affair. Instead, it became another play with adolescents and children as main characters ... which one would have hoped George would have avoided in light of the main series. Corlys aside, the only older guys in the conflict are Rhaenys and Daemon - and neither is very old. The way I imagined the era from Jaehaerys or even Aegon I onwards is that the family really took roots and spread out, with the Red Keep and Dragonstone being full of Targaryen branches by the time Viserys I took the throne. It would reflect their success. And George thought along those lines, too, when he gave Jaehaerys and Alysanne thirteen children ... but then he didn't carry them into the next generation. Which wouldn't have been hard to do with the incest and all that. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: In real life, Baelon would NEVER have been allowed to mourn the rest of his life even if he wanted to, not when his older brother only has a daughter and he himself two young sons. His father would have likely pushed him to remarry after he was proclaimed Heir Apparent. As I keep saying - kings do need queens in a feudal monarchy. They are not just baby machines, they do fulfill crucial functions in the system. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: 1) It makes the whole Dragonseeds affair more plausible than all of these smallfolk having the same degree of royal blood as Corlys, which is to say, very little since in canon we're talking about pre-Conquest generations. 2) It could also be useful with regards to fleshing out Ulf and Hugh. I expect the show to do something like that. They will have the dragonseeds as real people not as historical figures the sources didn't really knew much about ... so we could learn in scenes behind closed doors how exactly Rhaenyra and Daemon and their children are related to Ulf and Hugh and Nettles - and, of course, also to the Hull boys. Ulf and Hugh certainly could be half-brothers of Viserys and Daemon through Baelon or one of them could be a son or grandson of Aemon. Hugh strikes one as the younger man, still in his prime, so he might have been in his late twenties during the Dance - which would be too young for him to be a son of Baelon. Meaning he could be a grandson of Aemon through a daughter the guy fathered clandestinely. She would have been the woman the blacksmith had his bastard with. Ulf could be a son of Baelon's if he was in his mid-thirties during the Dance, say. He could have been fathered in the 90s after Baelon was named Prince of Dragonstone and resided there with his sons. Aemon would have hidden his daughter as to not anger Jocelyn, and Baelon would have done something similar to not further ruin his relationship with his mother - who often enough lived with him on Dragonstone in those years. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: 3) Any bastards, male or female, could be used to establish marital alliances on both sides. That would go for recognized bastards of high birth or perhaps only legitimized bastards. Dragon blood or not, most noblemen would never consider the likes of Hugh and Ulf and Nettles as matches for their children. 23 hours ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: 5) Having Baelon and/or Aemon be the perfect prince/brother except in the matter of their sex lives would not only subvert the overt Robb-Jon parallels GRRM included (right down to the "Jon was lean and graceful where Robb was fast and strong") but also provide an interesting source of conflict with their parents since I doubt J & A, being the traditional, conservative couple that they are, would approve of their sons sleeping around yet its the only fault they can find in their sons so they pick at it constantly (sort of like George III with regards to his sons incidentally). The problem there is especially that we know nothing about the Aemon-Jocelyn marriage. Not why they didn't have more children, not if they tried and failed repeatedly, not if them having only a daughter put a strain on their relationship. 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The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 19, 2023 Share Posted April 19, 2023 (edited) @Lord Varys What was Daemon's explanation again? I don't remember. Yeah. Rhaenyra and Aegon have no relationship whatsoever. I would have preferred both of them being ambitious or only one of them being genuinely reluctant. I still disagree re Maelor. The Targaryens understand (sometimes, half the marriages in F & B are personal/love matches) the value of political alliances and in the context of a brewing civil war doubly so. They'd have to be pretty dumb to, say, have 5 sons and 5 daughters, and marry them all to each other. In a feudal system, the personal is the political, with everything that entails. I mean at one point Alysanne was Maegor's daughter (I still like that idea very much tbh), J & A had 6 or 9 grandchildren, Rhaena in TSOTD draft was implied to actually like Androw, etc. GRRM has a noticeable habit of trimming branches when he actually gets around to writing stuff. Still makes no sense to me Daeron II had more grandkids and cadet branches than J & A. GRRM really does treat queens and noblewomen as just babymakers sometimes. I really hope, come F & B II, he doesn't have Daenaera, Myriah, etc. predecease their husbands (especially not via childbirth!). I still don't understand how no one told GRRM spending six chapters on the first 20 years of J1's reign and then glossing over the other 35 in just one chapter was not a good idea. There is so much missing (Barth treating with the High Septon as described in TWOIAF, actual details regarding the Books of Law and other reforms, Jocelyn and Aemon's relationship, Jocelyn's entire personality and death, Boremund's relationship with his royal half-siblings and marriage, etc.). I kind of assumed you'd know without me saying it that in this particular setting any bastard worth marrying would have to be acknowledged and/or legitimized. Edited April 19, 2023 by The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Jaehaerys Tyrell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 19, 2023 Share Posted April 19, 2023 6 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys What was Daemon's explanation again? I don't remember. That Tyland had been working with Otto for so long now that he was unlikely to turn on him. Show Tyland was actually a guy who argued for Daemon's Stepstones war, etc. - and he never had any issues with Rhaenyra, that was only Jason. One imagines that in the show Jason is going to be following Tyland's lead there, meaning he would have flown with Rhaenyra if Tyland had ... although he would gladly go with Aegon due to his own experiences with Rhaenyra. 6 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: I still disagree re Maelor. The Targaryens understand (sometimes, half the marriages in F & B are personal/love matches) the value of political alliances and in the context of a brewing civil war doubly so. They'd have to be pretty dumb to, say, have 5 sons and 5 daughters, and marry them all to each other. In a feudal system, the personal is the political, with everything that entails. Then why didn't they marry Aegon and Helaena to outsiders? No, the incest thing is what rules the marriage policy in most cases, especially for the heirs, the branch they expect to continue the royal bloodline. The parties existed and Otto and Alicent likely already knew they would make a power grab one day but Aegon had to marry his sister to look a proper Targaryen king. Especially with Rhaenyra married to Daemon. Maelor's hand would be the last anyone would ever offer in marriage, so the bigger issues there are why Aemond and Daeron are not yet betrothed or married. I agree that during the war the hand of Maelor could have been offered to seal an alliance, just as those of Aegon and Viserys could have been. But betrothing a two-year-old just isn't the rule in Westeros. 6 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: I mean at one point Alysanne was Maegor's daughter (I still like that idea very much tbh), J & A had 6 or 9 grandchildren, etc. GRRM just has a habit of trimming branches when he actually gets around to writing stuff. Still makes no sense to me Daeron II had more grandkids and cadet branches than J & A. Ran was mistaken about the idea that Alysanne was Maegor's daughter. 6 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: GRRM really does treat queens and noblewomen as just babymakers sometimes. I really hope, come F & B II, he doesn't have Daenaera, Myriah, etc. predecease their husbands (especially not via childbirth!). Myriah seems to be dead and gone by the time of Dunk & Egg. At least she is never so much as mentioned by anyone throughout the three novellas ... which one imagined she would have been if she was still around. Death in childbirth sounds like a given - although likely not when she delivered Maekar. More likely some years later during Daeron's reign. She was a queen, after all. 6 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: I still don't understand how no one told GRRM spending six chapters on the first 20 years of J1's reign and then glossing over the other 35 in just one chapter was not a good idea. There is so much missing (Barth treating with the High Septon as described in TWOIAF, actual details regarding the Books of Law and other reforms, Jocelyn and Aemon's relationship, Jocelyn's entire personality and death, etc.). I think the focus is not so bad, it is kind of reminiscent how most material of Augustus' reign focuses on his early reign. The issues you mention should have been covered in more details or at all, of course. What's missing is a chapter of Jaehaerys' grandchildren - a chapter that would have covered the childhood and youth and early adulthood of Rhaenys, Viserys, Daemon, and Aemma - and as a kind of appendix also the ultimate fate of Saera and her children. Such a chapter could have started with an overview of Aemon and Jocelyn's marriage, especially since Rhaenys, like Rhaena before her, should have been the grandchild which various sources would have cared about the most, being the only child of Jaehaerys' heir. But Viserys as his eldest grandson should also have been reported much broader. Daemon, too, once his prowess at arms became clear, and Aemma, too, at least from the point she was betrothed/married to Viserys and he was second in line to the throne after Baelon. Jaehaerys Tyrell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annara Snow Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 On 4/12/2023 at 6:44 PM, Lord Varys said: The point there is that George obviously modelled Rhaenyra there on his Catelyn portrayal. It doesn't really matter that Rhaenyra seems to be too depressed to get out of bed for about a year or so - FaB is not a novel. A boring thing it would be, just as Helaena is a completely wasted non-character in the book. And it already seems they are not going to portray her in this way due to ther having prophetic dreams and being autistic. Book Helaena's life seems to have revolved around her children (at least that's how she is portrayed). But show Helaena has other interests. So while the choice might still be traumatic for her, she might react differently than the way the book character allegedly did. That doesn't matter because it isn't the issue people are criticizing there. But, of course, Rhaenyra could have been right there counting on her dad's support when the Silent Five made their ridiculous statements. LOL, you do know that the 'original novellas' were badly edited incomplete versions of the manuscript versions of 'Heirs of the Dragon - A Question of Succession' and 'The Dying of the Dragons', right? And of course that tidbit is right there in TRP: FaB is based on the original texts written from TWoIaF which were then somewhat edited and enlarged (especially in the case of 'The Sons of the Dragon') - the 'original novellas' were completely ignored in the editing process there. And I can tell you that this episode was always a part of the manuscript of the bundle of text that would become FaB. Also, of course, Rhaenyra is never a monster nor 'paranoid and cruel' later in the war. She is wary of treason but that is the case for effectively her entire council. She is not even remotely a mad nutcase monarch like Aerys II or even Baelor the Blessed (whose pious lunacies were his ideas and his ideas alone and he pushed them through against his Hand and other advisers ... although eventually he may have appointed like-minded folks to high office). Rhaenyra's bad decisions are made by the consensus of a majority of her council, not by the monarch alone - unlike the mad and cruel decrees of Aegon II and Aemond - killing all rat catchers, killing all Strongs, burning people declared to be the most fervent followers of the Shepherd, building immense statues of Aemond and Daeron, etc. That seems to be a rather pointless objection. There is a consistent thread of dragons feasting on human corpses starting during the Wars of the Conquest. And it makes sense that a Targaryen sentencing somebody to death would feed the remains to a dragon - it is not only the ultimate humiliation, robbing the criminal of a proper burial, but it is also a sign that House Targaryen's victory is absolute. They physically destroyed their opponent. There is also not the slightest indication that anyone would invent or record such invented rumors during a time while the Targaryens ruled supreme. LOL, you don't seem to be getting at. You went out of your way to present Rhaenyra as very active in her own government with those examples ... and I showed that they are trivialities at best. It is like saying Trump was not a moron with a low attention span because he appointed officials, considered to pardon somebody, and authorized a battle plan his generals came up with. If we say a monarch does everything that's done in his name then Rhaenyra's earlier depression also doesn't matter - Daemon, Rhaenys, Jace, and Corlys all acted in her name, so she made all the decisions there, too, right? Thus there would be no difference between her kind of taking charge and her moping around in bed all day. It is very obvious that Rhaenyra was a very weak monarch, that she rarely, if ever, actually took charge, that the decisions made in her name were mostly done by other people. Which clearly is not the case for stronger monarchs who didn't rule by consensus or majority view of the council and who actually made the decisions their appointed officials then had to enact. You do know FaB - sit down, take some time, and reread and compare Rhaenyra's decrees and decisions to those of the young Jaehaerys I. I'm not sure were you come from there but your view of Rhaenyra as a mad and evil tyrant is just nonsense. It isn't in the text. She becomes unpopular because of incompetence and a lack of funds ... not because she kills people left and right for no reason. Leaders who don't think about their own political agenda themselves, who don't make plans or programs themselves, who come unprepared to a council or staff meeting, etc. are weak and incompetent. They then only enact policies others come up with, possibly only on a whim. Of course, a ruler doesn't have to be a genius who comes up with everything himself - but he should have a plan or a vision. Look again to Jaehaerys I - or even Tyrion in ACoK. They know what they want but they take good advice and incorporate things into their plans that better the original plan. Rhaenyra never comes up with anything herself. The plan to take KL is Daemon's and Jace's. When she sits the throne she has no clue how to end the war - Daemon suggests eradication of all enemies, Corlys peace terms. She takes a middle road rather than thinking about things before herself. Making peace, making the people accept her queenship was her job. After the Two Betrayers it is not her 'mad paranoia' that leads to the actions against Addam and Nettles - it is her council and Mysaria that push her in that direction. George could have written Rhaenyra as a paranoid madwoman there who had believed all by herself that the other bastard dragonriders would betray her. He could have had her dealing with a council of rational and sane people who tried to dissuade her from foolish actions which could only strengthen her enemies. He could have had Rhaenyra overrule them all commanding that Addam/Nettles be arrested/killed - like the Mad King might have done. But he didn't. He wanted to portray Rhaenyra as a weak and indecisive ruler. And the best example for this are her doing effectively nothing to protect the dragons during the riots. You trying to portray her return to Dragonstone as something that shows she was meaning business is also hilarious. She was a broken, defeated woman who wanted to go back home. The talk about another dragon is nonsense. Sure, she may have hatched some eggs on the island, but it would have taken her years to use them in war. The issue wasn't whether Rhaenyra was smart or competent. It was whether she was active or supposedly paralyzed with grief to do anything. She clearly wasn't, and intelligence and political competence, or lack of it, have nothing to do with her response to grief. (And BTW rulers listening to different advice and taking the middle road is a pretty normal course of action.) You shot yourself in the foot with the Trump comparison - he's a moron, but he's definitely not passive. The point is that multiple people here keep insisting that there are multiple female characters whose reaction to grief and loss was to go "mad" and become broken and passive as a result. That's not true. Only Helaena had that reaction. Rhaenyra didn't go mad or become passive, neither did Alicent during the war, and Catelyn went mad in the end moments before her death but never became passive - quite the opposite, in fact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annara Snow Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 (edited) On 4/12/2023 at 7:46 PM, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys Re Vaemond: The way that line reads to me it doesn't sound like there was much of a trial, if any. Maybe @Ran could clarify for us? Re Mysaria: You don't become known as "Lady Misery, the White Worm" and have people in the future comparing Bloodraven to you in a negative way without being someone of dubious morality. Plus, we never see or hear of her doing anything remotely good. Arranging Blood & Cheese, telling Helaena of Maelor's death (in one version), arranging the Brothel Queens (again, only in one version, though it must be said if people are willing to even entertain such a thing about you, clearly you're not seen as a remotely pleasant person), setting Rhaenyra against Daemon, sleeping with Daemon despite him being married to Rhaenyra (she appears to approve of it but the fact she turns to food for comfort makes me think that first bit isn't entirely true, and who knows what Rhea Royce thought), running a spy network (see the fate of Thoron True and Denys Woodwright for an example of her effectiveness in that role), none of that can be remotely construed as good in any traditional sense of the word, and you know what? That's fine! Part of good storytelling (and good representation) is that characters don't have to be pigeonholed. There's room for dark, ambitious, dare I say, evil, female characters. Anyway, your ideas for show!Mysaria could have merit...if the dialogue wasn't so bad and the accent so weird its sometimes hard to make out what she's even saying. None of that is the fault of the actress though and for that she has my sympathies. As for Alicent, I wasn't denying the show made her more likable and nuanced. I was saying that it did so in certain ways and some of those ways involved making her a victim (Viserys, Larys) or superficially appear more neurotic as opposed to the more confident femme fatale (for lack of a better word) vibe I got from F & B. @The Bard of Banefort I like your idea for how they could have adapted an older Alicent. Reminds me of the premise for a horror adaptation of Snow White starring Sigourney Weaver. @Annara Snow I'm pretty sure that bit with Vaemond was in TRP, long before F & B came out (and most of what GRRM expanded upon for that concerned TSOTD, not TRP, to the dismay of myself and many others). Most of what was cut from TRP concerned the GC of 101 AC. Anyway, what I liked about the book version of that particular event is, again, Rhaenyra being more proactive in solving the problem presented to her. If they could have found a way to do that while dialing down the OTP horribleness as you put it I would have been quite content but as presented to us Rhaenyra couldn't count on her father bailing her out at the last second and yet had no failsafe for a trial she knew from the start was rigged against her. As for the topic of Helaena and trauma, when one character is written to react a certain way, that's an acceptable decision. When multiple, specifically female, characters are written to react the same way, its a problem. And in the case of Helaena specifically the issue is that her grief renders her into an object by the narrative, which defeats the purpose because then we can't relate to her trauma. "When multiple, specifically female, characters are written to react the same way, its a problem." But they are not written to react the same way at all. You keep saying that and offering no arguments to support it. I've already addressed that multiple times and pointed out that none of the other female characters react anything like Helaena. Neither Rhaenyra nor Alicent become mentally ill during the war nor do they stop participating in the politics. Catelyn only becomes more active - and while she does go insane in the end, moments before her death, that doesn't make her passive at all, it does the opposite, in fact. Grief and loss only makes her more active and, ultimately, more vengeful and murderous. Quote I'm pretty sure that bit with Vaemond was in TRP, long before F & B came out (and most of what GRRM expanded upon for that concerned TSOTD, not TRP, to the dismay of myself and many others). Most of what was cut from TRP concerned the GC of 101 AC. I'm pretty sure a lot was added in F&B because I believe the two novellas together are not as long as the F&B portion about the Dance. and I think I'd notice such an incident if it was even back in TRP. And I even remember that TWOIAF introduced new details about the Dance that were not in either novellas. Of course I would have to reread all of them to be sure. I agree wtih @Lord Varys's points about Mysaria and Alicent. Calling F&B Alicent a "femme fatale" is very interesting since there's very little in the text to support that. Last week someone on Twitter claimed that F&B Alicent showed ambition a at a young age, and I pulled quotes to show that there's little support for that too. All we know is that Alicent was beautiful and smart (and described as "precocious") and that Otto took her to court when she was 15, where she was first reading to the ailing and dying king Jaehaerys, who would sometimes mistake her for his daughter, and that Viserys later decided to marry 18-year old Alicent. It's said that. although the Hightowers are a very old and great house, many thought "the Hand had outreached himself". The only things that I can detect as sources for the idea of Alicent as a femme fatale are Mushroom's slut shaming her with rumors that she slept with Viserys while Aemma was still alive, and even that she had something sexual going on with Jaehaerys. The latter seems extremely unlikely (especially with how fondly Alicent remembers the Old King) but would've really made her a victim of molestation, and even if it's true that she and Viserys committed adultery, he was the one with all the power. A woman/girl who had caught the king's attention could either accept his attention or appeal to her virtue to refuse to be his mistress, but she certainly couldn't refuse to be his wife. And there's no indication whatsoever if Alicent did anything to attract Viserys or if she just decided by himself that he wanted her. Furthermore, Otto also had power over Alicent and she would have to obey her father, so even if she decided to get close to Viserys on purpose, it's most likely Otto was the one behind that. The only other sex rumor about Alicent is that Daemon supposedly took her virginity - which would only make her a victim of Daemon's attempts to get back at Otto and his general creepy virgin fetish. But it says a lot about how culture has shaped our minds that so many of us, as readers, created the idea of a femme fatale Alicent, because the vague facts of the situation (and Gyldayn's use of the ambiguous word "precocious", which can easily be used to blame teenage girls for supposedly seducing grown men) fall so easily into the trope of golddigger, power-hungry seductress, teenage vixen (just like her relationship with Rhaenyra falls easily into the Evil Stepmother trope) - even though there is little indication that Alicent was seducing anyone and even if she was, it is really unlikely that the family's ambitions were driven and masterminded by the teenage girl, rather than her father, the Hand of the King. The way many of us readers read Alicent sounds like the way Cersei interpreted Margaery Tyrell, who's similarly opaque as a character in ASOIAF (but said by Littlefinger to not be interested in being a queen). (GoT probably contributed by aging up Margaery and making her into an actual ambitious seductress who wants to be "the Queen".) Regarding ambition, even that's nebulous - it's only much later that Viserys later says that Alicent wants Aegon to be king (we don't know how she felt before her marriage), and the one tie Alicent herself talks about her motives is when she says at the Green Council that Daemon will kill her children as a threat to Rhaenyra if she ascends the throne, especially because Rhaenyra's position is weakened because her heirs are bastards. There's never any indication of any actual romance in Alicent's life, and her last words quoted are perhaps the biggest insight into her life - and it says a lot that she only thinks fondly of her children, and the Old King for being nice to her and telling her she had a lovely voice - but there's no mention of Viserys, or Otto. I think that's telling both because, if your fondest teenage memory was reading to a dying old man who mistook you for his daughter, I'm guessing you had no fun in your entire life, and also you weren't happy with your husband - and probably also needed a better father figure than your own father. Edited April 20, 2023 by Annara Snow Khloey and Jaehaerys Tyrell 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: The issue wasn't whether Rhaenyra was smart or competent. It was whether she was active or supposedly paralyzed with grief to do anything. She clearly wasn't, and intelligence and political competence, or lack of it, have nothing to do with her response to grief. Just stop. Rhaenyra didn't a fucking thing until she snapped out of her mad grief. Which she only did after the death of Jace - like Cat did after the catspaw's attempt. Helaena never snapped out of her mad grief at all. Or rather: if she did, the author didn't care to tell us. She could have, but he chose to first make her Aegon's and then Rhaenyra's prisoner. And our sources obviously weren't Helaena's gaolers, so we don't know her state of mind by the time of her death. Although, of course, the suicide strongly indicates she wasn't exactly mentally well at that point. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: (And BTW rulers listening to different advice and taking the middle road is a pretty normal course of action.) This was an example to show that Rhaenyra rarely/never brings anything to the table herself. Best example is for her doing nothing BUT STANDING THERE WATCHING while the rabble storms the Dragonpit. She is disgusting, the very incarnation of the hand-wringing, weak-willed, impotent woman. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: You shot yourself in the foot with the Trump comparison - he's a moron, but he's definitely not passive. Depends what you mean by that. Grand gestures and talk doesn't mean agency if you are just the mouth pieces of others. Senile Ronald Reagan was the same. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: The point is that multiple people here keep insisting that there are multiple female characters whose reaction to grief and loss was to go "mad" and become broken and passive as a result. That's not true. Only Helaena had that reaction. Rhaenyra didn't go mad or become passive, neither did Alicent during the war, and Catelyn went mad in the end moments before her death but never became passive - quite the opposite, in fact. Catelyn went mad when Bran fell. Helaena and Rhaenyra go mad when Jaehaerys and Luke are killed, and Alicent goes mad when all her children are dead. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: I'm pretty sure a lot was added in F&B because I believe the two novellas together are not as long as the F&B portion about the Dance. and I think I'd notice such an incident if it was even back in TRP. And I even remember that TWOIAF introduced new details about the Dance that were not in either novellas. Of course I would have to reread all of them to be sure. I'm not sure what's your issue, is actually. But if you want people to continue talking to you on a discussion board I suggest you start to not reiterating stuff that has been debunked - by me or other people. This stuff is objectively false, and you could know that if you were actually checking the texts you make statements about. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: Calling F&B Alicent a "femme fatale" is very interesting since there's very little in the text to support that. Last week someone on Twitter claimed that F&B Alicent showed ambition a at a young age, and I pulled quotes to show that there's little support for that too. All we know is that Alicent was beautiful and smart (and described as "precocious") and that Otto took her to court when she was 15, where she was first reading to the ailing and dying king Jaehaerys, who would sometimes mistake her for his daughter, and that Viserys later decided to marry 18-year old Alicent. It's said that. although the Hightowers are a very old and great house, many thought "the Hand had outreached himself". You have to differentiate between femme fatale and ambitious woman. Alicent Hightower is not described as a femme fatale, but she is obviously ambitious as hell. Not every woman sleeping around - as Alicent may very well have - is a femme fatale. That is a very specific kind of woman, a woman who (is perceived to) use her sexuality in a way to entrap and ruin and control men. But not every woman having extramarital or premarital sex would have to be perceived in that manner. Alicent's ambition we draw not from her early but from her later life - from her forming a party of her own to challenge the king's chosen heir, from her decision to arrange and/or participate in a coup d'etat, from her later political actions whose only goal it was to ensure the victory of her children and bloodline over that of Rhaenyra. The woman is political ambition incarnate. If she wasn't ambitious, she would have been happy with her role as secondary wife whose sole purpose it was to provide the king with spares and not heirs. Also, of course, Alicent's true personality also can be seen from her unwillingness and inability to get along with a stepdaughter who is ten years younger than she is and but a child when they marry. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: The only things that I can detect as sources for the idea of Alicent as a femme fatale are Mushroom's slut shaming her with rumors that she slept with Viserys while Aemma was still alive, and even that she had something sexual going on with Jaehaerys. The latter seems extremely unlikely (especially with how fondly Alicent remembers the Old King) but would've really made her a victim of molestation, and even if it's true that she and Viserys committed adultery, he was the one with all the power. A woman/girl who had caught the king's attention could either accept his attention or appeal to her virtue to refuse to be his mistress, but she certainly couldn't refuse to be his wife. And there's no indication whatsoever if Alicent did anything to attract Viserys or if she just decided by himself that he wanted her. Furthermore, Otto also had power over Alicent and she would have to obey her father, so even if she decided to get close to Viserys on purpose, it's most likely Otto was the one behind that. The only other sex rumor about Alicent is that Daemon supposedly took her virginity - which would only make her a victim of Daemon's attempts to get back at Otto and his general creepy virgin fetish. It is quite fun how you downplay slutty Alicent there, implying this is all construction and perception by the male gaze ... whereas Rhaenyra definitely must have slept around with Harwin, etc. Not to mention that the silly Mushroom story about Daemon helping to seduce Criston, etc. is 'believable'. The notion that Alicent could have had a crush on Jaehaerys is not unlikely - he was the greatest man alive, after all. Her doing sexual stuff with him would not damage or tarnish her necessarily, if it was done at her own behest. She was old enough to do stuff like that by the standards of the world. With Viserys it is quite different as it depends who instigated the affair and/or eventual marriage. We just don't know. Could have been Alicent, could have been Viserys, could have been both. The notion that Alicent had to marry Viserys in any case is silly. She could have refused him, just as she could have refused to be his mistress. Especially if the king were to ask her to marry him, not arrange a match with or through her father. Which in this context seems to be unlikely, actually. Alicent is right there, so Viserys could first approach if she was willing to marry him before he would turn to Otto for the details of the marriage contract, dowry, etc. Not to mention that Viserys' nice personality makes it exceedingly unlikely he would want to marry a woman who doesn't want him nor that he would just announce that he were to marry Alicent - the show depicts it that way but that's because it doesn't show Viserys approaching Alicent (and Otto) privately. It is supposed to be a surprise to the audience - but Otto and Alicent are not surprised. Now in the show Alicent has no agency there. Otto has her do what Unwin Peake has Myrielle do with Aegon III - and it works. When Viserys decides to remarry he thinks of Alicent as very good candidate, enjoying her company, so he settles on her and, originally, thinks it was his idea. But that's not how things have to have gone in the book. Otto may not even have thought of the match. It could have been Alicent's idea or the king's who simply fell for Alicent. You can also drop the Daemon-Alicent thing. That was actually added to TRP to spice up Daemon and was never part of the original manuscript of FaB and didn't make it into the final version. So it is gone, not canonical, since the final version of those texts were published as 'Fire and Blood' not 'The Rogue Prince' or 'The Princess and the Queen' or (most definitely not) 'The Sons of the Dragon'. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: But it says a lot about how culture has shaped our minds that so many of us, as readers, created the idea of a femme fatale Alicent, because the vague facts of the situation (and Gyldayn's use of the ambiguous word "precocious", which can easily be used to blame teenage girls for supposedly seducing grown men) fall so easily into the trope of golddigger, power-hungry seductress, teenage vixen (just like her relationship with Rhaenyra falls easily into the Evil Stepmother trope) - even though there is little indication that Alicent was seducing anyone and even if she was, it is really unlikely that the family's ambitions were driven and masterminded by the teenage girl, rather than her father, the Hand of the King. The way many of us readers read Alicent sounds like the way Cersei interpreted Margaery Tyrell, who's similarly opaque as a character in ASOIAF (but said by Littlefinger to not be interested in being a queen). (GoT probably contributed by aging up Margaery and making her into an actual ambitious seductress who wants to be "the Queen".) Considering that Cersei Lannister actually knew the art of the seduction at Alicent's age it is silly to assume that Alicent couldn't have, either. Margaery Tyrell is indeed not particularly ambitious for herself - but Alicent clearly is as her later actions prove. Margaery as Robert's queen wouldn't have pushed her own children before those of Cersei, one imagines. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: Regarding ambition, even that's nebulous - it's only much later that Viserys later says that Alicent wants Aegon to be king (we don't know how she felt before her marriage), and the one tie Alicent herself talks about her motives is when she says at the Green Council that Daemon will kill her children as a threat to Rhaenyra if she ascends the throne, especially because Rhaenyra's position is weakened because her heirs are bastards. We can deduce Alicent's character from her actions. But talk, too, like her mocking the looks of Laenor Velaryon's children or her pretending to be concerned for Rhaenyra's well-being regarding Criston Cole (while not being concerned for her own well-being after the man had become her own sworn shield). And Viserys is of course right that Alicent wants Aegon to be king - she says so herself later on when she pushes through the coup. It is she who presumes to lecture the Small Council on the laws of succession and that a king's eldest trueborn son must succeed him. 1 hour ago, Annara Snow said: There's never any indication of any actual romance in Alicent's life, and her last words quoted are perhaps the biggest insight into her life - and it says a lot that she only thinks fondly of her children, and the Old King for being nice to her and telling her she had a lovely voice - but there's no mention of Viserys, or Otto. I think that's telling both because, if your fondest teenage memory was reading to a dying old man who mistook you for his daughter, I'm guessing you had no fun in your entire life, and also you weren't happy with your husband - and probably also needed a better father figure than your own father. That is a overly nice interpretation of things. Alicent was queen for decades in the most prosperous era of the Seven Kingdoms. Of course she would have had fun at Viserys' side, even if she didn't love the man. She ran the court, hosted feasts and balls and tourneys, had lots of children, etc. The best way to interpret her final madness is that she realized, belatedly, that she had been her own worst enemy. Her ambition to destroy Rhaenyra and replace her with Aegon had ruined not only her life but that of her family as well. And, of course, House Targaryen as whole, killing lots of dragons, and even the Realm at large. That is why she can no longer bear to see the color green. Her fondly remembering Jaehaerys could be more than just a nice memory - it was the beginning of her time at court, a court which would ruin her life and the lives of her children. It could indicate that there was more to those rumors than just Mushroom talk. Perhaps she admired the Old King, perhaps she had a crush on him, perhaps she even had sex with him, who knows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annara Snow Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 @Lord Varys I'm not going to bother reading all of that, but I suggest: please listen to your own advice and: Just. Stop. If you want to talk to people on discussion boards, you should stop doing these things: - saying that you've "debunked" my arguments when in fact, you haven't debunked anything at all, you just keep ignoring my arguments and repeating "they all go mad", when I've already demonstrated that none of these reactions are similar at all, - listing "facts" that have no basis in canon and that you've completely made up - saying that those "facts" you've made up and other things that are contrary to canon and real life (such as that any king's subject could really reject his marriage proppsal) are "objectively true" - flip flopping your positions 180 degrees, which makes it look like you just want to argue for the sake of arguing. First you argue with another poster that there's no basis to see Alicent as a femme fatale, then when I agree with you and expand on that, now you suddenly argue that Alicent is a femme fatale and write a huge post tp argue that she is just so you can argue with me! Come on. At least pick one and stick to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 3 minutes ago, Annara Snow said: - saying that you've "debunked" my arguments when in fact, you haven't debunked anything at all, you just keep ignoring my arguments and repeating "they all go mad", when I've already demonstrated that none of these reactions are similar at all, (Not doing this for your sake, of course, but to show the public how your debate tactics go.) You said this in this very thread: On 4/12/2023 at 8:01 AM, Annara Snow said: Rhaenyra having Vaemond killed and feeding his corpse to Syrax (which I'm pretty sure was not in the original novella, where Rhaenyra came across as flawed but still fairly normal and lilkable before the war and losses make her paranoid and cruel) is the exact kind of thing that would make Rhaenyra look like a monster even early on in the story. to which I responded with that: On 4/12/2023 at 6:44 PM, Lord Varys said: LOL, you do know that the 'original novellas' were badly edited incomplete versions of the manuscript versions of 'Heirs of the Dragon - A Question of Succession' and 'The Dying of the Dragons', right? And of course that tidbit is right there in TRP: Quote The princess was not slow in answering this charge. She dispatched Prince Daemon to seize Ser Vaemond, had his head removed, and fed his carcass to her dragon. I didn't have to debunk you, this is not an argument. It was me pointing you to the text. Which shows that your idea there is just wrong. Also I explained to you the actual textual history of the FaB material. There is nothing original about the novellas, they are badly edited and incomplete versions of the full manuscripts which were originally written for TWoIaF. Nothing was expanded on for the 'novellas', they were shortened to fit into the anthologies they were published in. Any further corrections and additions George later made when preparing FaB for publication was done in those manuscript files, not with the novellas as templates. You should know this because Ran has elaborated on this - and you can also believe me because I have actually seen those manuscripts in different stages of completion. There is not the slightest indication that the character of Rhaenyra was changed in the writing process there. She always put Vaemond down. That is no new addition. 3 minutes ago, Annara Snow said: - listing "facts" that have no basis in canon and that you've completely made up LOL, I'm sure that's the last thing I've ever done on those boards. 3 minutes ago, Annara Snow said: - saying that those "facts" you've made up and other things that are contrary to canon and real life (such as that any king's subject could really reject his marriage proppsal) are "objectively true" A marriage proposal is a proposal. It can be rejected. Of course, there could be pressure on Alicent and all ... but as I pointed out, Viserys I was a nice guy, unlikely to force a woman into a marriage, so the only pressure Alicent may have felt would have been of her own making ('Oh, Gods, the king wants me to marry him! I don't like him, but how could I refuse him?!') or of her father's. It wouldn't have been pressure from the king. We do see how a tyrannical king actually has to pressure three women into marrying him when Maegor the Cruel takes his black brides. It isn't enough that Maegor is the king, he has to take hostages. Your problem at discussing things here is that you don't really care much for the text, but your interpretation of it (or, more precisely, your image/interpretation of the characters which are only dimly visible historical figures). I'm not sure you get it, but I'm not saying Alicent couldn't have been pressured - I argue against the notion that your interpretation there has much merit. The fact is: We don't know how the marriage came to be. Alicent could have been an ambitious slut in all that - like Cersei, say - or the timid and repressed little mouse we see in the show. It is unclear. If there was a premarital affair between Alicent and the king this would also give more agency to her as she could have started it - in fact, it could have been the reason how the marriage came to be. 3 minutes ago, Annara Snow said: - flip flopping your positions 180 degrees, which makes it look like you just want to argue for the sake of arguing. First you argue with another poster that there's no basis to see Alicent as a femme fatale, then when I agree with you and expand on that, now you suddenly argue that Alicent is a femme fatale and write a huge post tp argue that she is just so you can argue with me! Come on. At least pick one and stick to it. I thought I made that one clear. It was about what a femme fatale is. A femme fatale is a woman seducing and devouring men, controlling them through her sexuality, etc. As a construct she is contrasted with the femme fragile. Nothing in the book indicates Alicent is a femme fatale in that sense. I was arguing against @The Grey Wolf Strikes Back's notion that the book paints Alicent as a femme fatale. She is never described in that manner - Cersei is a femme fatale in a sense, Arianne, too, for Arys Oakheart. And the greatest femme fatales of them all in ASoIaF is Melisandre of Asshai - with her the thing goes so far that half of more of the male (and female) readership still see the women with the senile eyes of Maester Cressen - terrible and red and all that stuff. However, Gyldayn's picture of Alicent doesn't mean she cannot have been a femme fatale, either! But the fact is that his portrayal doesn't paint her as such. You want to rob her of agency and ambition. That is clearly wrong. Alicent Hightower is arguably the most ambitious and most political savvy queen in the second century of the Targaryen reign (Myriah Martell might also have shaped and influenced politics, but we have to wait and see to what degree). She had her own party, was hellbent to destroy her stepdaughter and crown her own son instead, and half succeeded at that. But she didn't do that - to our knowledge - by seducing men or having affairs with them. Although we have to be clear on this, too. We don't know how Alicent Hightower inspired loyalty in men like Criston Cole and others. There are certainly also limits to her power and influence. Once her son is crowned her influence dwindles and she only steps up again to try to pick up the pieces when the men around her (especially her incompetent sons) fuck things up. How ambitious she remains you can see in the end when she is the one pushing Aegon II to not take the black and mutilate his nephew. Aegon is a windbag, but Alicent has teeth until the end (as she proves again when she tries to force her granddaughter to murder her husband). If she slept with Jaehaerys I and Viserys I prior to their marriage this would also not have to be viewed as slutty or femme fatale behavior - but a young woman living her sexuality (and perhaps also exerting power). It is not uncommon or unheard of that female nurses offer sexual services to old clients - and, as I said, if Alicent admired Jaehaerys or had a crush on him something could have happened there. The man was crushed by so much grief, after all. And making out with your future husband is also not something that turns Alicent into a femme fatale. That would require more. It could approach that quality, I'd argue, if Viserys had been in love with another and Alicent's seduction led him away from this hypothetical 'virtuous woman'. But just having extramarital sex isn't enough to be a femme fatale. In fact, the really good thing about the show is that it depicts Viserys-Alicent without turning the former into a bumbling fool who is under the spell of his witchy wife. He is a man who cares for his wife and indulges her whims because he wants to make her happy. He is in charge, not she. Rhaenyra is kind of portrayed as a femme fatale in the whole Criston Cole episode. She is the women (trying to) seduce a man who has taken a vow of chastity, a woman whose feminine wiles may or may not have led him astray. But only kind of since Criston Cole is not actually ruined by her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted April 21, 2023 Share Posted April 21, 2023 (edited) @Lord Varys Re Maelor: You answered your own question. Aegon II was married to Helaena to emphasize their Targaryeness. We've seen a few times that while the eldest son is married to a sister or something approaching that the same isn't always necessarily the case with a younger son. (Consider Maegor I (married to a Hightower for political purposes), Daemon (married to a Royce for presumably political purposes), Aemond (betrothed to a Baratheon to seal an alliance), and Aemon (joins the Kingsguard).) Indeed, the only incest matches I can think of involving younger sons are Baelon (Aemon was already married to their half-aunt), Baelor (which has more to do with Daeron I's bizarre marital status than anything else), and Aerys I (which may not count considering Aelinor is a cousin of some sort and possibly Jena/Alys/Dyanna as well). How was @Ran mistaken? He literally posted that at one point early on in the Targaryen family tree Alysanne was Maegor's daughter. Just because she's not around in 209 AC doesn't mean she has to have died in childbirth. She could pass in her sleep, fall off a horse, succumb to an illness, drown in a shipwreck, choke on something, or been poisoned just off the top of my head. Childbirth wasn't the only killer of women in the Middle Ages. A chapter focusing on J & A's grandchildren would have been better than what we got, which was nothing. As I wrote in one of my replies, I used "femme fatale" for lack of a better word at the time. What I meant to say, as I later made clear, was that I see book!Alicent as being somewhat similar to show!Margaery. As for her sleeping with Jaehaerys I and Viserys I, some would have considered it slutty (particularly if they were more traditional/conservative/pious) but others would have considered it business as usual (kings slept around, had mistresses and bastards, sometimes even married said mistresses, etc.). And yeah, that's my main beef with show!Alicent. She just doesn't seem to have the same inner fire as her book counterpart but that may change in future seasons. Edited April 21, 2023 by The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Jaehaerys Tyrell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 21, 2023 Share Posted April 21, 2023 4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: @Lord Varys Re Maelor: You answered your own question. Aegon II was married to Helaena to emphasize their Targaryeness. We've seen a few times that while the eldest son is married to a sister or something approaching that the same isn't always necessarily the case with a younger son. (Consider Maegor I (married to a Hightower for political purposes), Daemon (married to a Royce for presumably political purposes), Aemond (betrothed to a Baratheon to seal an alliance), and Aemon (joins the Kingsguard).) As I said - I agree with you that they could have used Maelor's hand as a bargaining chip during the war to make alliances. And you are right that it is odd that nobody seems to be thinking about that. However, having a two-year-old already betrothed before the war when neither Aemond nor Daeron are betrothed at that point would be odd. Especially since Helaena was still fertile and could produce a sister for him to marry. And that is what they do. Jaehaerys and Alysanne wanted to pair all the sons with sister - first Daenerys-Aemon, then Baelon-Alyssa, then Vaegon-Daella. And what little we know about Aenys' marriage policies indicates that just as Rhaena-Aegon were effectively informally paired long before their betrothal was announced - Jaehaerys and Alysanne were also expected to marry from a very young age. That is why they are so keen to see this through. One imagines that their father indicated that this would happen, perhaps around the time he told the family that Rhaena and Aegon would marry. 4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: How was @Ran mistaken? He literally posted that at one point early on in the Targaryen family tree Alysanne was Maegor's daughter. He was mistaken about his memory that the earlier family tree looked like that. 4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: Just because she's not around in 209 AC doesn't mean she has to have died in childbirth. She could pass in her sleep, fall off a horse, succumb to an illness, drown in a shipwreck, choke on something, or been poisoned just off the top of my head. Childbirth wasn't the only killer of women in the Middle Ages. Yes, of course, but my bet remains on death in childbirth. 4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: As I wrote in one of my replies, I used "femme fatale" for lack of a better word at the time. What I meant to say, as I later made clear, was that I see book!Alicent as being somewhat similar to show!Margaery. Yes, the issue between us is resolved, no worries there. Although I'd say that show Margaery certainly enters into femme fatale territory in the way in which she seduces Tommen and all that. Also in her eagerness to play around with Joffrey. That kind of behavior we don't see in the historical sketch of Alicent. Now, as I said, it doesn't mean it wasn't there. She could have seduced a lot of men, Viserys I included, but I think the core of her personality is more her ambition. As I lay out - Alicent shares most of the blame for the family becoming dysfunctional. She couldn't get along with Rhaenyra, who was still a child when things started to go bad. Considering her relatively humble background and the fact that the succession was settled before her marriage - in no small part because her father insisted on the king making a clear and decisive ruling on the question - her inability to get along with the king's chosen heir and accept her role as a secondary wife and the mother of spares, not heirs, clearly shows she had grander political ambitions for herself and her children. None of that has anything to do with her looks, her sexuality, or the hold she may have had over men and women due to her charisma. It bottles down to dynastic aspirations and questions of rank and status. 4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: As for her sleeping with Jaehaerys I and Viserys I, some would have considered it slutty (particularly if they were more traditional/conservative/pious) but others would have considered it business as usual (kings slept around, had mistresses and bastards, sometimes even married said mistresses, etc.). As I said, this thing only were to enter into femme fatale territory if we could say the men in question here were seduced, were falling for Alicent because she played them ... and for that we just have no evidence of. In-universe both things would reflect badly on Alicent in either case, regardless whether she took the initiative there or if she effectively had no choice in the matter. 4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said: And yeah, that's my main beef with show!Alicent. She just doesn't seem to have the same inner fire as her book counterpart but that may change in future seasons. Giving her more ambition, more agency for herself from the start could have been pretty interesting. It is fine for her to still consider Rhaenyra a potentially good queen for a time ... but she could also have liked the idea of being queen. Her depiction of being uncomfortable in that role years (!) after her wedding and at a point when she had given the king two children already makes no sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frey family reunion Posted April 21, 2023 Share Posted April 21, 2023 (edited) On 4/9/2023 at 9:38 AM, The Bard of Banefort said: It occurred to me that they might decide to kill off Helaena early if they wanted to avoid having too many “mad queens,” should they choose to go that route with Alicent and/or Rhaenyra. I dunno, the Helaena on the show seems very different than the one in the book. If nothing else they might want to keep her prophecizing a bit longer. Edited April 21, 2023 by Frey family reunion Jaehaerys Tyrell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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